


Summers in Montana

by Vashti (tvashti)



Series: SPS [6]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, August 2019 TwistedShorts Ficathon, Community: twistedshorts, F/M, Leah Not Being Awful, Sister-Sister Relationship, Werewolf Politics, some proofreading we die liek mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21882598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvashti/pseuds/Vashti
Summary: Buffy and Oz go back to Montana for fun, sun and grown up conversation. Eventually. Later.
Relationships: Bran Cornick/Leah Cornick, Daniel "Oz" Osbourne/Buffy Summers
Series: SPS [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1130723
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: TwistedShorts





	Summers in Montana

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the August 2019 Twisted Shorts FAD over on livejournal. I've proofread for clarity, but remains largely unchanged. Oh! Except for the title. If you read the original, it used to be called "Smoothing My Heart Down".

“Where are you going again?” Dawn asked, frowning even as she helped her sister and favorite werewolf pack their rental car.

“To Montana,” was Buffy’s reply. It wasn’t the first time she’d answered this question, and not only from her baby sister. 

“Um, why?” 

“Why not?” Buffy countered as she lifted an amp into the back. The wide-eyed stare Dawn was giving her meant that she wasn’t packing fast enough. Rolling her eyes, Buffy took the bag from her sister’s hand and haphazardly tossed it over the storage area into the rear seats. 

“There’re no beaches!” Dawn called as Buffy passed her to go back into their house.

“I noticed!” Buffy shouted over her shoulder.

“Or malls!”

Coming back out of the house, Buffy paused long enough to roll her eyes, again, at her little sister. “There are totally malls.”

Dawn put her hands on her hips. “Not like here.”

“You’d be surprised,” Buffy said as she went back to filling the car.

Shaking her head, Dawn gave up and went back into the house to grab the cooler full of snacks. Inside she ran into her sister’s boyfriend. “Oh! Oz! You’ll tell me the truth. Why are you and Buffy going to Montana for, like, an entire month.”

“S’nice,” was his very loquacious reply. Which, to be sure, was about the  _ length _ of response Dawn was expecting if not the  _ content. _

“I can’t be for the hot guys. You and Buffy are like this,” she said, holding up her crossed fingers.

Smiling softly, Oz pulled her hand towards himself so he could place a gentle kiss on her twined fingertips. Then he pressed her kissed-fingers to Dawn’s own lips.

She colored. “What was that about?”

“You’re a good sister and we both love you.”

“Oh.” A pleased smile broke across Dawn’s face even as she blushed harder. “Geez, Oz. No wonder she likes you,” she muttered.

“It’s one reason,” Buffy said as she walked in. (It was all but impossible to have a private moment in a house with a werewolf and the Slayer.) 

Oz caught Buffy around the waist and bussed her lips with his own. “Ready?” At her nod, he released his girlfriend to pick up his guitar case from the floor. “Let’s go.”

“Be good,” Buffy said, reaching for Dawn. “No poisoning Willow and Tara with your crazy cooking.”

“Hey!” Despite the teasing, the sisters shared smiles and a tight hug. Dawn turned to Oz, his free arm already open and waiting for her. Unlike her sister, Oz said, “Throw a wild party.”

“Hey!” this time from Buffy.

Dawn and Oz shared a grin as they parted. “Well I know why  _ I _ like you.”

“Hands off!”

More teasing and semi-serious instructions were tossed between the three as they made their way out to the rental. Buffy and Oz climbed in, Oz in the driver’s seat (“For everyone else’s safety!” Dawn had said, grinning at the raspberry her sister blew in response). Then they were pulling out of the Summers’ driveway as Dawn followed behind, sending them off with a grin and wave and little-sisterly advice.

It wasn’t until she was halfway back to the house that she realized she still didn’t know why the pair had chosen to spend the first half of their summer vacation from school and baddies in Montana of all places.

“Ooooh!”

* * *

Buffy glanced at her boyfriend before her eyes were drawn back to the road. “Do you think we should have called ahead?”

“They already knew we were coming, Buff.”

“For vacation,” she countered, nose wrinkling. “Not business.”

Oz’s eyes flicked towards her. “You not planning to vacate at all?”

“I most definitely plan to vacate. Did you not see the teenie-weenie bikini I packed? Aspen Creek may not have a beach but Mercy swore that the swimming hole is where all the cool kiddos hang. And plus? Way shway sun deck on that house Bran the Marrok loaned us last time.”

“Same house as last time?” Oz asked, referencing where they’d stayed the one other time they’d had an extended “layover” in Montana the winter previous. 

Oz had gotten beaten up by nature the last time they’d ventured into the wilds of Montana. He’d been fortunate to be found by a local werewolf pack. It had also happened to be the local pack of the Marrok, the alpha of all werewolves on the North American continent. 

The Marrok, or Bran, had nursed Oz back to health and offered a tentative hand of friendship to the Slayer. Ostensibly the pair had been going on vacation for the one halcyon week in winter when evil seemed to take a holiday, so most of their time in Montana had been spent roasting marshmallows, taking pictures of beautiful snowy forest, trawling the local mall, falling from skis (cross-country!), and pretending to not be the nightmare of the supernatural world. One day Bran had taken them on a sleigh ride, and then invited them to a kind of town-wide talent show. It had been fun. Occasionally weird (Buffy wasn’t sure what Mercy’s talent was supposed to be), but fun.

Nodding, Buffy said, “Pretty sure it’s the same house. Sounds like that’s where he puts up the visiting dignitaries and junk.”

Oz cut his eyes at his girlfriend again. “Visiting dignitaries and junk?”

“Yeah?”

“He’s probably expecting that we’re gonna want to do  _ some _ business.”

Buffy wrinkled her nose. “Really?”

Oz chuckled. 

“Why do all the old foges have to be so serious?” she said, remembering how she’d struggled to convince Bran that she’d come to his town to retrieve her  _ boyfriend _ not start a war. She’d come alone, after all. If she’d wanted to start a war, she had two witches, a sister-slayer, the crazy extensive research prowess of a mystical key and former curator of the British Museum, and a seriously under-respected carpenter in her back pocket. Plus, y’know, a growing army of mini-slayers. Sure Buffy and the new Watchers Council would have been hilariously outnumbered, but since when had that ever stopped them?

Spoiler: Never.

At the time she’d told Bran that she hadn’t been there to renegotiate the treaty that the old Watchers’ Council had made with him in the way back when, but now...

“Think we can at least put it off until  _ after _ the Polson Cherry Festival? It’s in two weekends.”

Reaching for Buffy’s hand, Oz said, “No cherry pie, no deal.”

“Exactly!”

* * *

Leah was plaiting her long hair when she said to her husband and mate, “You should probably wait until after the cherry festival to start negotiations.” The words were carefully chosen to be advice instead of an order. Not that she would dare, but lots of things could be misconstrued before morning coffee.

“Oh? Why?” Bran was half in their walk-in closet, but was of course perfectly able to hear his wife.

“The Slayer has a sweet-tooth. And, as far as we know, she’s only bringing the omega wolf.”

“Oz. Her boyfriend,” Bran confirmed as he stepped out.

Shrugging at no one--Leah was facing away from Bran--she said, “The Slayer is a young woman coming to Montana with her boyfriend. The last time she did that, she refused to talk business at all.” Leah turned to look at her husband as she coiled her long, long blond hair around her head in a crown that emphasized the strength and loveliness of her face. “Let her have the cherry festival.”

“Pleasure before business?”

Leah shrugged. “She seems to love her boyfriend. They jumped at the chance to spend time here even after he was mauled in the woods. She’ll probably appreciate the gesture.”

Bran nodded. “I’ll consider it.”

“Do whatever you want. You always do,” Leah said as she stood to leave their room. 

Bran caught her hand before she could. “I do appreciate the advice.”

Her hand twitched in his, eyes trained on the bridge of his nose. “Do you?”

Then she was gone.

Bran sighed. What did it say about his marriage when he was looking forward to hosting a slayer on his home turf for a month?

Fin[ite]


End file.
